Christmas 2011

We had a fabulous Christmas weekend out at The Compound with my parents.  There was lots of relaxing, eating, and opening of presents.  On Friday, we opened presents from Mike's family at our house and wouldn't you know, Olivia does NOT like opening presents!  We thought for sure that she would be eager to tear off wrapping paper and dig into gift bags to find the new treasures inside but she was not having it.  The only thing we can think of is that she understood that we were giving her a wrapped gift and then when we tried to help her open it by ripping the wrapping paper, she thought we were ruining it.  There were big tears and everything!  Oh well, there's always next year.

Here she is on Friday opening her Winnie the Pooh pillow from Bethy.  So far, so good . . .

Ok Mommy, I'll help you open this book

This is the beginning of the freak out.  I don't have any pictures of her mid meltdown, we were too busy trying to calm her down

Muah!  Kisses for my new baby from Nana and Papa

Morning milk in her Christmas jammies

Hmm, let's try this present thing again.  It seems OK if I open Mommy's presents

I've very good at putting all the wrapping paper in the big box

Breakfast break - chocolate croissants and ham

Here Paw Paw, you can have this bow

Who needs presents when you have paper towel tubes??

She was happy to pull this soft toy out of a gift bag and give it a big hug

Surrounded by tissue paper, I've got some major tidying up to do!

Look at that pretty baby Granny!

Cheeeeeeese!

Shortly after this picture was taken, Olivia decided that it was nap time.  After we put her down (for her 3 hour nap!) we opened the rest of our presents and sat down for a Christmas lunch of chicken and sausage gumbo, mmmm.  Don't worry, we gave her some when she woke up!  Once we had her fed, we sat down to open all of her presents.  Wait for it . . .

WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO MY PRESENTS???

I don't want to open presents!

But I will drink my milk while my Mommy opens them for me

Lining up all my new Mega Blocks on the dining room table . . .

. . . and draw pretty pictures on my new etch-a-sketch

Here Auntie Nina!

On Christmas night we all got comfy in the living room to watch the Bears game.  You can't see it, but Olivia is wearing the new Bears shirt that her Aunt Nina gave her.  We are so very blessed to have my family so close and enjoyed every second that we were able to spend with them.

Merry Christmas!

Fun with bows

'Tis the season for wrapping presents and therefore the season for playing with bows . . .

Poor Santa

When we took Olivia to The Domain last year to have her picture taken with Santa, I didn't have high hopes.  She was 4 months old and not really in love with strangers so when we got this picture out of her, I deemed our visit to Santa a success.

Fast forward to the present.  Last week, we took Olivia back to The Domain for another visit with Santa.  We purposefully went in the afternoon during the week so that there wouldn't be a long line and we could take our time, letting Olivia see that Santa was in fact a very nice man.  Olivia didn't mind looking at Santa, or talking to Santa, or playing with the ornaments on Santa's Christmas tree, but when it came time to sitting on Santa's lap . . . .

Holy meltdown!

Even Mr. Rabby could not save the day.  Notice the second shoe falling to the ground in this picture.

The only way we could get a picture with Olivia and Santa in the same frame (smiling was out of the question) was for us to make it a family picture.  Note to self: Next year, make sure to go to work in picture-with-Santa appropriate clothes on that don't make you look as big as a house. 

Oh well, there is always next year.

Little helper

Olivia is so helpful!  In this video, Olivia is taking clean socks out of our sock drawer and putting them in the laundry hamper.  So helpful!